“Ripley”/Empty Bottle
What a club can host continues to evolve as the Grelley Duvall Show returns for the fourth year to the Empty Bottle, a bar best known for its musical acts. The project run by Alex Grelle is perhaps one of Chicago’s best examples of a gesamtkunstwerk—a total work of art. To achieve this synthesis, which Grelle calls a “triple threat,” the show series brings actors, singers, dancers and drag artists together, alongside puppetry in “Ripley.” The limited-run show debuts on August 27 for a long weekend, telling the story of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley from the “Alien” movie franchise.
Starring Alex Grelle, Jackson Rothmund, Jacque Brejay, Kara Brody, Lily Moore, Lolly Extract, Margo O’Connell, Patrick Stengle and Sarah Ellen Miller, and co-directed and choreographed by Alix Schillaci alongside a four-piece band that consists of Aunt Kelly, Dan Gianaris, Matt Gold and Sarah Weddle, expect a high-octane thrill that distorts the medium to more properly explore a complicated movie character.
Coming off Grelley Duvall’s biggest performance yet, “Best Actress” at the Chopin Theatre, which was co-produced by Paul Scudder and Katie Mazzini, Alex Grelle is well-versed in exploring his character’s desires. Grelle’s performance tastefully packages camp. Drama is on full display, taken from Chicago’s thriving drag scene and welcomed wholeheartedly on the stage. Overdue is the recognition that drag acts belong in the performing arts. Theater, for its extended history of gender-bending role-casting, benefits from staged exaggeration. Grelley Duvall amends that divide by encompassing the extraordinary. In his past performance in “Best Actress,” which, as the name suggests, imagines an aspiring actress’ dreams, he turns spectacle into theater’s milieu. In “Lady Di,” Duvall’s show from previous years at the Empty Bottle about the late Princess Diana, he makes pop culture into spectacle. “Ripley” does the same, as Grelle, who “loves giving a heavy dose of nostalgia,” relies on the “Alien” films as a reference point to joyously crack open the serious titular lieutenant. In this highly anticipated show, science fiction lends itself perfectly to a venue lit with the enticement of alternate realities.
With margins in the entertainment world slim, Chicago audiences seek the theater according to Grelle. It’s not only possible to perform at a bar, but for that show to reliably return. “I’m grateful as all hell that the Empty Bottle and the ‘Ripley’ company want to persevere and do a shoestring budget sci-fi show with nothing but a tube of chapstick and a dream.” Puppetry by Lolly Extract delivers yet another style of performance that unites a community in the City of Big Shoulders. Their expertise rigorously animates the extraterrestrial pop spoof. The usual crowd’s rambunctious energy follows Grelle, whose larger focus is improving his craft. This time, with a cast of “high-caliber quadruple threats,” the next may be larger yet. With ten years under the belt of Grelley Duvall, “Ripley” makes meta Sigourney Weaver’s performance with an exciting revue.
“Ripley” is on stage at the Empty Bottle, 1035 North Western, August 27-30. Tickets here.
